12.09.05 - 15:03

While living up the posh Nouakchott lifestyle, I met a very charming man from Sierra Leone. (He was washing dishes for my patron friend in his palatial estate.) The man fled Sierra Leone in 1990, and had never been able to go back. His mother died in his absence and he has not seen his siblings in fifteen years. "The situation there," he told me simply, "was very bad." I nodded and smiled because, really, I did not know how to express sympathy or empathy or whatever for a situation so terrible. How could I even begin to understand?

Then he asked my my nationality. When I told him I was American, he looked at me with sorrowful sincerity and said "I am so very sorry for your loss." I looked at him a little blankly. "The hurricane in New Orleans," he explained. "It must be so difficult for the American people."

I was so very touched and put to shame. I left him washing dishes and rejoined my patron friend for Perrier and bacon in the air conditioned salon.

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